1. Field of the Technology
The present technology relates to an image forming system for forming an image based on image data displayed on a display apparatus by an image forming apparatus, an image forming apparatus, and a display apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
As an information device for displaying and explaining various information for a plurality of viewers at meetings, business presentations, education, training and the like, a display apparatus such as an information display (IDP) is used. This IDP is often configured to have a large screen and further to have a coordinate input section such as a touch panel and a display section such as a liquid crystal display integrated.
This IDP is able to display image data on the display section, and is able to edit, with respect to an image displayed on the display section, the displayed image in real time such as by inputting handwritten characters using a touch panel.
The IDP is often used in a conference hall or a presentation hall as described above, and image data that has been edited on the display section is often printed and distributed to viewers as materials after explanation based on the image data displayed on the display section is finished as well. In such a case, a display apparatus that is the IDP and an image forming apparatus for printing the image data are connected so as to allow data communication, which are configured as an image forming system.
In such an image forming system, print job data including image data is transmitted from the display apparatus such as the IDP, and the image forming apparatus that has received the transmitted print job data forms an image based on the image data included in the print job data on a recording medium such as recording paper by heating and pressing with an electrophotographic system.
As to the image forming apparatus constituting the image forming system, an image forming apparatus capable of switching a power-saving state and an image formation enabled state to reduce power consumption has been proposed. In the image forming apparatus capable of switching a state, the power-saving state is set during a standby period of image forming operation that print job data is not received from a display apparatus such as an IDP, and when print job data is received from the display apparatus, the power-saving state is cancelled and the image formation enabled state is set.
In the image forming system including the image forming apparatus as described above, in a case where print job data is received from the display apparatus in the power-saving state, each time print job data is received, returning operation for cancelling the power-saving state to switch to the image formation enabled state (that is, heating operation) becomes necessary, so that power required for the returning operation becomes wasted.
Technologies for solving such a problem are disclosed, for example, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publications JP-A 2011-173323 and JP-A 2010-125616. According to image forming systems disclosed in JP-A 2011-173323 and JP-A 2010-125616, when receiving print job data from a display apparatus in the power-saving state, an image forming apparatus temporarily stores the print job data in a storage section and suspends image forming operation once to collectively execute the image forming operation corresponding to a plurality of print job data stored in the storage section at a time. Thereby, the number of times of the returning operation for cancelling the power-saving state to switch to the image formation enabled state is reduced, and it is possible to suppress wasteful power consumption accordingly.
However, in the image forming systems disclosed in JP-A 2011-173323 and JP-A 2010-125616, since it is configured such that the image forming apparatus, when receiving print job data from the display apparatus, temporarily stores the print job data in the storage section and suspends the image forming operation once, there is a problem that, in a case where the image forming apparatus is shared by a plurality of display apparatuses, for example, even when the image forming apparatus receives print job data that is desired to be printed immediately from other display apparatus than the IDP, the image forming operation is suspended.